Author: Dominik Bukovac, 1. tehnička škola Tesla, Zagreb
Mathew and William, two friends who had no special interest in each other except for situations when Mathew begged William to borrow him his homework. William was always alone and he didn’t like to lend things so easily because it made him feel like someone was stealing his thoughts by taking his homework. William sometimes hesitated to give homework to Mathew, but eventually he’d give up despite the main reason for not lending his homework and that was that Mathew received very good grades for “his“ hard work. On P.E. classes Mathew was well known to be saucy to William but William had his aces up his sleeve for he was a very intelligent boy who knew exactly how to bring his friend back down to earth with a bump. He was a sharp boy with a very sharp tongue, while Mathew could only count on his looks. More or less, these two had a history of their own until the fourth grade of elementary school. At that time, there was trouble at William’s house, his parents were about to divorce and he was transferred to school in Zagreb. He moved with his mother to Zagreb, which his former class didn’t know until the teacher came a few days after she found out and told the whole story to the class. Mathew felt kind of sad at the moment while other kids acted as if nothing special had happend. After that, Mathew started to study very hard, losing his friend made him realize that he had done some unfriendly things to that boy. Long period of time has passed and the story continues at the point when they were finishing their final year at college.
The night was neither cold neither hot. Mathew, with his group of friends, was walking down the street. They were returning from a party and were heading to a friend’s after party, whose place was on the other side of the city. As they were walking and laughing all the way, they suddenly stumbled across another group of people consisting of two metal heads, four punks (two punk boys and two punk girls) and one goth. Mathew felt scared of their presence at the first moment, but his friends only laughed. When the group noticed them, they came to Mathew’s group. Everybody stood still. Then one metalhead approached and asked if anybody had a lighter. Nothing happened, only dead silence. Mathew started to observe the goth. He seemed familiar. Mathew pulled the lighter out of his pocket and gave it to the metal head. As they were lighting up the cigarettes, Mathew looked very closely at the goth. Suddenly it crossed his mind that he knew who the youth might be. Then he shouted: „William?!“ The goth was staring at him confused for a minute. They approached each other and William remembered too. Mathew then hugged him and said: „Oh boy, I haven’t seen you over a decade now. Look at you!“ William muttered a few words, but he was thrilled and shocked for quite some time. After few minutes of talking they exchanged phone numbers, because they had to go separate ways at that moment. Few days have passed and they arranged to meet at a coffee shop. They met at two o’clock and spent the afternoon talking and laughing until eight o’clock. In those six hours, they talked about everything, from what they had done in their lives, what they wanted and still want. After that meeting, they decided to buy an apartment when they finish their colleges. William finished the language faculty and Mathew graduated as construction engineer. They had enough money from the jobs they worked as students. William and Mathew were both considering the idea of living and working abroad but they simply couldn’t make the final decision.
Learning was the best thing about William, he always wanted to learn new things and he was always looking all around for free courses on various fields of interest. That is how he found some information about sustainable tourism for development. William briefly told Mathew what the course is about. Mathew wasn’t so interested but eventually he agreed to join. They didn’t have much use of it at first except that they became aware of certain problems and gains of touristic industry, but everything changed after one birthday.
After the course, two weeks have passed. William was going on a birthday party, he also invited Mathew to come, but he resisted. William then told him: „There you’ll have free drinks and food.“, Mathew replied: „I’m in.“ What Mathew didn’t know was that friend of William’s was a goth like him and like pretty much everybody else invited. He felt a bit unpleasant and uncomfortable. William went to speak with other people while Mathew had already drank a half of vodka. The friend who was celebrating wanted to introduce William to a friend of his, Samuel. Very soon it turned out they had many things to talk about, but the best part came when he told him that he is working in the field of sustainable tourism for development in a small town, not far from Zagreb. In that town the culture and natural resources were the real treasure, which had to be preserved. He also said that they needed men to hire, William was delighted. Samuel gave him his e-mail and said they’d be contacted soon enough. Two days after the party, Samuel sent an e-mail, he wrote that he had an apartment for them to settle down. Jobs were already arranged. They packed their stuff and went on a bus. As they came and settled down, they first went sightseeing with Samuel. As they were walking by a small hotel Samuel said that William would work there, for he spoke several foreign languages. Mathew was employed at local firm engaged in rebuilding and restoring old houses and buildings and also making them enviromentaly friendly. After the arrival, they had made a great progress. Mathew asked for resources to promote and protect town’s inheritance, legacy and culture, which he managed with the help of his firm and the mayor, who found his ideas brilliant. Town soon became very popular for its sustainable tourism, concerned about protecting the very assets which made it beautiful.
The moral of this story is that if you want to progress you have to work very hard, but with an old friend to help and with ideas of respecting your homeland and its cultural and natural beauties, you just might succeed in anything.
